Tag Archives: guides

guides, thoughts, trapping, Uncategorized

In The Blink of An Eye: The Lost Art of Trapping

29 Comments

clapslateI majored in filmmaking. Yes, that’s right, while the bulk of my friends were busy doing math or science or English courses, I was learning about cinematography and lighting and screenwriting and sound design and watching dozens of movies. (Actually, probably the two courses that taught me the most were the black-and-white darkroom photography class and the “class” where I was the prop manager for an on-stage rendition of “Kimberly Akimbo“, but I digress).

One of the 200-level courses was an editing course and its professor was a guy that most of us loved to poke fun at. The reason is because he was a very proud self-professed “dinosaur” who liked to go into long rambles on how kids these days would just rush into digital editing without ever once touching a real piece of celluloid, and how this was a horrible, terrible loss. Because of this, our big project for this class was to take a bunch of footage that was filmed long, long ago and turn it into a ten-minute long story. Oh and this was “real” film footage– no digital editing allowed.

This project was notorious throughout the school’s film program for the tears it induced; little sketches and cartoons depicting the hellishness of it all hung taped to various shelves in that dark, warm, sticky editing room filled with Moviolas and splicers. There was almost always someone in there working on a project, and everyone was filled with relief when the semester ended and the project was over and we could all safely move on to doing the rest of our school career’s projects on Final Cut Pro.

And so it may shock you to discover my reaction when I discovered not long after that, that my class would be the last ever to do that project– from then on out the school’s program was going completely 100% digital from the start, and no future students would have to do the one token “film editing” assignment.

I felt sad for them.

Because suddenly I realized that in a way, my professor had been right all along. There’s something about actually handling that film footage that teaches you something that is hard to explain. Those future kids wouldn’t get to experience literally being drowned in reels of loose film as you sat on a hard metal foldup chair in that tiny room, bent over your projector, trying your best to imagine your near-microscopic viewing screen was a wall in a theater. They would never get to experience having to think over all your editing choices and weigh them carefully with your instincts before making that splice, because if you later decided you wanted an extra two frames of footage you had to go tape your film back together– no “Undo” buttons here. Those future students would never get to experience all the literal sweat and elbow grease and wouldn’t get to view the joyous celebrations of a group of college kids who would sneak bottles of wine into that infamous room on the night before the project was due, refusing to uncork them until 2 or 3 in the morning when their cut was done and they could wind up your final film with pride, knowing they had just accomplished something very tangible. Because nobody did that in the clean, airy, and yet somehow very sterile computer rooms.

Yeah… my professor was right.

You’re asking why I’m telling this story, and you’re going to giggle at me when I tell you why, but oh well. I’m telling this story because everytime I think of chain trapping and how it seems to be such an un-needed and un-practiced skill these days, I think back to editing class and how once again I feel like one of the last of the old guard.

Some of my favorite memories in Burning Crusade where when I would go into a heroic with a tank that knew me and maybe a healer who knew me, and then two PuG DPS. The tank would mark up a pull– on a hard pull there would be the tank’s target and then there would be, for example, a sap, and a sheep, and then my beautiful blue square– the trap target.

I’d lay down my trap, the rogue would sap, the mage would sheep and then the pull would begin and I’d pull my mob into my trap and pewpew away at the skull. Then skull would be down and the rogue and the mage would run towards my trap… but oh wait, what’s this? The tank is headed at sheep, instead! So we’d all DPS sheep and I’d retrap my target and then the mage and the rogue would rush over to– oh wait, she trapped it again? And the tank, who knew me very well, would go right over to sap without blinking and we’d all DPS sap and then everyone would turn around right as I had finished calmly pulling my mob into yet another trap. At which point the tank would perhaps pause and /dance a bit before finally charging in.

Those moments were beautiful. And every time they happened I grinned to myself and knew I had pulled off a job well done. These days, things are easier and we don’t have a chance to pull that kind of thing off anymore. More than ever before, we are about the fabled Massive Quantities of Sustained Ranged DPS once spoken of by a wise man, and we have little room for anything else. Better? Easier? Your opinion. But as for Professor Pike, who has turned into her editing professor– I think that a hunter who has never trapped before is missing a little piece of knowledge and experience that they would find useful and fulfilling if they learned how, even in today’s world (of Warcraft).

Which is why my hunter kindergarten courses will always contain something on chain trapping, and why my sidebar still links to my Chain Trapping Tutorial Movie. Some of the specifics are different, but the basic gist of it is the same. And I still talk like a dork, so that hasn’t changed either. >.>

Remember: time and space are your friends. Lay your trap out early and use distance to your advantage, because that will buy you more time.

<3 (Oh, and in case you are curious, the title of this post, "In the Blink of an Eye", is the name of a book I read in that class, by master editor Walter Murch. I have long thought there was something very “huntery” about editing (or “editory” about WoW hunters), in that in my mind, both are sort of the unsung heroes of the finished product. Looking through that book recently, I’ve discovered there is actually a chapter called “Misdirection”. I rest my case. =P)

beast mastery, enchants, guides, pets, stats, Uncategorized

Tuesday Chat: Agility, Attack Power and Pets

23 Comments

It’s Tuesday morning, the servers are down and some of you even have extended maintenance. Whether you’re at work or at home, there’s a good chance you’re bored. Never fear, Pike is here! To answer a few huntery questions I’ve been getting relatively frequently in comments/e-mails/Google searches/postcards. Except without the postcards. All I get in the mail are bills. /sob

But don’t take it from me. See for yourself what tragedy lies ahead when the paths of star-crossed lovers meet. And now: On with the show!

How much Attack Power does Agility give you as a hunter?: This is a flat 1:1 ratio. One Agility is one attack power. If you heard differently somewhere, you heard one of two things: either that Agility actually is worth more as Survival (which it is) so in a roundabout way, you do get more AP for it– or somebody who used to play a hunter a long time ago and then probably rerolled shaman/paladin in BC informed you that Agility gives you two attack power. Important: This stopped being the case with Burning Crusade. It’s 1 Agi = 1 AP now. A surprising number of people out there still aren’t aware of this. Don’t worry if you were led astray! Totally not your fault. *nods*

As a Beast Master hunter, should I be focusing on Agi gems or AP gems? Your “Stats for a Hunter” guide says Agi, is that still true?: That particular guide was written during the era of Burning Crusade and as such, while the basics of it are still correct, not all of it entirely is anymore. This is one of those points that has changed. At this time last year Agility was sort of the stat du jour for gems and enchants; AP and crit were still both very good, but “real hunters picked Agi”, so to speak.

These days, with your pet doing a bigger percentage of your damage (probably about 45-50% of your total DPS on a Patchwerk-style fight, as opposed to 30-35% of your total DPS in Burning Crusade) and Kill Command no longer having anything to do with your crits (and Cobra Strikes in general not proc’ing enough to justify stacking tons of crit), Attack Power is worth a lot more to you as a Beast Master than it was before, because it does, in fact, affect your pet’s Attack Power. Combine that with the fact that, for example, there have been no upgrades to Agility-based two-handed weapon enchants but some yummy AP ones, and you can see why AP is coming out the winner for Beast Masters these days.

Now remember, none of this means that agility or crit is bad. We still love them both. Just that AP gems are going to get you a bigger bang for your buck. Oh, and if you are dual-spec’d BM/Survival, I’ll say figure out which one you play more and gem for that. (Agi for Survival, and AP for BM).

So which pet really is the top DPS pet for Beast Masters?: There is some confusion here and I think it comes from the fact that there are some discrepancies on the list between “top DPS pets alone” or “top DPS pets when combined with the hunter”. Here’s the deal:

Devilsaurs are the current top DPS pet for Beast Master hunters.

Fortunately, for those of us who don’t like the large size/wonky hitbox/etc. of the devilsaur, we have some options.

Wolves do not do particularly high amounts of DPS alone, but in conjunction with Furious Howl applying to the hunter they are the second best DPS pet– yes, even for Beast Masters— last I checked the theorycrafting sites. Remember, combined with Longevity, that buff is gonna be up some 66% of the time for us. That’s pretty good.

However, they are only a smidge ahead of Raptors, the third best choice. Raptors on their own do rather more DPS than wolves do, but they lack the buff so the combined hunter-pet DPS theorycrafts out to be a little lower. They are still a top-notch pet especially for Beast Masters: Savage Rend crits a lot which self-buffs the Raptor and I have personally found it makes a big difference. I have both a wolf and a raptor at level 80 and I usually bring the raptor to raids. I find, in my situation, that I tend to perform slightly better with him (aside from the fact that I am more attached to him >.>). So remember, the theorycrafting numbers aren’t always everything, you have to see what works for you.

“But Pike, I love my Spirit Beast/Cat/etc.”! Good! Please keep using the pet you love. Cats and Spirit Beasts are still quite viable, they just aren’t in the current “top three” on paper. But “on paper” is just that, on paper, and in my humble opinion it’s not as important as raiding with a pet you have had since level 10, or took forever to find, or just love dearly.

Well, hopefully all of that cleared up some confusion. As always, this site would not be complete without the comments, so feel free to leave ’em!

guides, hunter kindergarten, pets

Pet Specs: 3.1 Beast Master Edition

24 Comments

Pet specs have been shaken up a bit with the advent of 3.1, so let’s talk about how you will ideally spec your three types of pets. First up, pet specs for us Beast Masters (I’ll cover you non-extra-talent-points folks in a later post!)

Ferocity:

ferocitypetspec20points

You will probably want your Ferocity pet’s talent tree to look like this. This scoops up everything you need to ensure your pet is the instrument of your vengeance in your average raid or heroic. Of course, there are adjustments you can make if you are solo’ing or leveling and would rather pick up, say, the stamina or healy-type talents. But honestly, Heart of the Phoenix never once worked for me anyway, so I didn’t really have a problem with ditching it… >.>

Cunning:

cunningpetspec20points

Your cunning pet is a very versatile creature who can be used in a variety of situations, and as such I consider his talent tree to be the most flexible in terms of talents that you do/don’t want to take. I have found that this works very well from a solo’ing or questing standpoint. I know Cunning pets are often overlooked these days but honestly, equipped with things like Owl’s Focus, Feeding Frenzy, Wolverine Bite and Roar of Recovery (now with a shorter cooldown), they are not to be underestimated. Try one out and see what you think.

Tenacity:

tenacitypetspec20points

With Thunderstomp no longer Gorilla-exclusive and some great new tanky–talents, the Tenacity changes were really great. I have found this to be a very good pet-tanking build. You purposefully bypass some of the typical “DPS” talents in favor of making your pet able to take it, if not dish it out. There is some flexibility here if you’re not a big fan of Last Stand and would rather put the Avoidance+Last Stand points somewhere else, although I’ve found it to be quite a lifesaver in multiple tricky situations, myself… I wouldn’t go without it.

Welp, there ya have it. Toss me your questions and comments, and the “non-Beast Master edition” is coming up soon!

guides, how-tos

The Quickest Noblegarden Guide Ever

23 Comments

1. Go to a level 5-ish “starter town”: Goldshire, Dolanaar, Razor Hill, Brill, etc.

2. Find eggs that are hidden around the town. On some low-pop servers people are running around grabbing eggs as they find them, on others people are camping egg spawn points which means you’ll probably have to also.

3. Open the eggs as you get them, inside you’ll get a lot of chocolate which you can use as currency and occasionally also some toys and items.

4. Visit the Noblegarden quartermaster (there is one in every aforementioned starter-town), any of the items you need for the achievement if you want it, and/or did not get inside eggs, are available to buy for chocolate.

5. ???

6. Profit!

—

I’ve written before about how I’m not really big into the holiday achievements partially because they are stressful (and thus, in my mind, counter to the point of having a holiday) and partially because I’ve already done them all before. However, with the new Noblegarden, I hadn’t done it before, so I went out and spent several hours yesterday collecting eggs. Not for the achievement and title, though I am definitely scooping up a few of the fun ones along the way… but because I can add more toys to my collection. My motto: one can never have too many toys and horror collectibles for one’s backpack. Another collectible you might want to add to your collection is these Cosplay Contacts you may use for your horror event.

Oh, and my toons look superfriggin’-cute with bunny ears.

[Insert screenshot here that I’d post if the realms weren’t down. Feel free to pretend it’s the greatest screenshot you’ve ever seen.]

guides, hunter kindergarten, screenshots, Uncategorized

My Viper Sting Brings All the Mana to the Yard

16 Comments

ability_hunter_viperstingAh, Viper Sting. Up until this latest patch I used it for two reasons, and two reasons only: to extinguish mage-type mobs who had nasty fireball attacks that hit like a truck on my pet, and to tick off casters in Alterac Valley. Well, the first is rather situational, and the latter hasn’t gotten much use since I decided I don’t feel like doing the PvP gear grind again anytime soon so I’m on extended hiatus from battlegrounds… not to mention the drain itself has been rather distressingly nerfed. Anyways, the point is, when Serpent Sting finally became a bread’n’butter hunter ability, there was really little use for Viper anymore.

Recently, though, Viper Sting has changed entirely. Namely, that mana it drains from a mob? It now also gives mana to you.

There are two reasons why this is awesome.

First, it makes solo’ing easier. My current preferred solo/leveling talent build scoops up 2/2 Invigoration, and if you combine that with the new Viper Sting, and then finally Aspect of the Viper, your downtime is pretty much zero.

Now, you should be aware that the mana you gain back from Viper Sting from most mobs in the field, while certainly not nothing, also isn’t exactly earth-shattering. You’ll still find yourself switching to Aspect of the Viper a lot. So this brings us to our second point…

There are a lot of instance and raid mobs or even bosses who have metric tons of mana. Guess who can drain it? And guess who gets a lot of mana back for it?

lunapikeflex

That’s right, you. While I’ve actually yet to test this in a raid situation (all the raids I wanted to test this in this past week either failed to ignite or conflicted with my schedule), I’ve tested it in a few heroics and it’s quite amazing how much mana you can get. Now, Serpent is still preferred in most situations from an instance/raid standpoint. But if you need the mana, well, now you’ve got a great backup. And my Marksman friends out there get a nifty bonus when they combine it with Chimera Shot.

In short? Say hello to your new little friend, Viper Sting. It’s an ability that I think will come in handy whether you’re a lackadaisical hunter (thanks Mania for the term!) or one who likes to go swimming in the raiding pool.

Caveat lector: Not every mob or raid boss has mana. A good many don’t, in fact. In those situations, you’re back to your old tricks. =P

guides, shot rotation, Uncategorized

WotLK Hunter Shot Rotation Compendium

29 Comments

With dual-specs upon us, and hunter specs in general looking a lot closer in terms of DPS differences than they have ever been before, a lot of hunters are trying out specs they don’t normally play. Along with that, there are a lot of questions floating around regarding our shot rotations– or perhaps more accurately these days, shot priorities. So, I figured I would create this post as a quick reference guide for what you are supposed to be doing when you spec a certain spec. I plan on keeping this post “active” and coming back to it as needed to reflect any future changes, though I’m getting the feeling that we’re approaching some semblance of permanence for this expansion.

Quickly, what this post is and is not:

This is NOT… going to tell you how to spec, glyph, level, or PvP.

This IS… primarily level 80, PvE-oriented and should give you a quick idea on what to do if you just spec’d for a new spec, and spec’d it relatively well, and are running straight into an instance or raid.

Keep in mind that these are not strict rotations, instead, they are priorities: What that means is you are not going to go down this list and fire every shot, and then go back to the beginning and rinse and repeat. It means that you are going to fire shots which are off cooldown and/or need refreshing in this order. Also please note that these are adaptable for various situations, and that I tended to stick the Stings/DoTs first, as a matter of style and just to organize things, although there may be some situations where you don’t want to fire them first– for example, if Kill Shot is available.

So without further ado…

The WotLK Hunter Shot Rotation Compendium:
Last Updated: April 21, 2009 – Patch 3.1

Beast Mastery:
The Shot Priority: Serpent Sting – Kill Shot – Arcane Shot – Multishot/Aimed Shot (optional– can be a mana hog so works best in conjunction with Replenishment) – Steady Shot
Pike’s Notes: Not just Steady spam anymore, although I see plenty of non-hunters and even hunters running around who still think this is the case. Heck, I saw BM Hunters on the receiving end of mockery regarding this just today in trade chat. They are, I am pleased to report, quite mistaken. Beast Masters may not have quite so many shots and stings to juggle as the other specs, but they still have plenty to do and when you combine this with a Bestial Wrath glyphed and talented almost down to a minute, and your Kill Command which is on a similar cooldown, you’ve got lots to play around with as well.

This rotation depends largely on Glyph of Steady Shot— Steady is still a large chunk of your damage as a Beast Master and because it is so weak you need to do everything you can to pull it up, and yes, that includes keeping Serpent Sting up.

The rotation is adaptable on the fly to account for mobs that are nearly dead (when the cooldown for refreshing a Serpent Sting would not be worth the extra Steady damage), as well as deciding to put off Serpent Sting if Arcane and Multi are off cooldown, for example.

Marksmanship:
The Shot Priority: Serpent Sting (one time only) – Kill Shot – Chimera Shot – Aimed Shot – Arcane Shot – Steady Shot
Pike’s Notes: One of my favorite attributes of the Marksman spec is that you don’t have to worry about refreshing Serpent Sting– Chimera Shot does it for you. It will spoil you rotten, I promise.

Note that Multishot is typically not in your rotation as a Marksman– it shares a cooldown with Aimed, and Aimed will generally pack a larger punch for you in the case of most current Marksman specs. However, if there is more than one target, and the tank has a good hold of them all, swapping in a Multi for Aimed will in fact result in a DPS increase. (This is the case with all three specs).

Use Readiness wisely, it can be used for great effect to get double Kill Shots after a trinket pop, for example

Survival:
The Shot Priority: Black Arrow – Serpent Sting – Kill Shot – Explosive Shot – Multishot/Aimed Shot (optional) – Steady Shot
Important! When Lock and Load procs: Be sure to squeeze one Steady or Aimed between your two “instant” Explosive Shots– that way you don’t overwrite your own Explosive Shot DoT. (You may also opt to “wait” between Explosives if you don’t have an instant ready– see the comments in this post for details.)
Pike’s Notes: This is me being biased, but with the introduction of Black Arrow and the current encouragement to use Multishot or Aimed, Survival has gotten a lot more fun and interesting for me in 3.1 than it was, well, pre-3.1. The overall “rotation” feels like a weird cross between Beast Mastery and Marksmanship, with a side dish of “random” tossed in, and it might take some getting used to but it’s certainly not boring.

Black Arrow is interesting as it cannot be “refreshed” like Serpent Sting: it has a pretty hefty cooldown even with talents that reduce that cooldown. Still, it’s a not-too-shabby DoT and also a big DPS booster, and also your source of Lock and Load procs, that should be kept up anytime it is available.

Explosive Shot is still your ace in the hole here. You are more encouraged to use Multi/Aimed as Survival than as a Beast Master because you are more mana efficient and can probably afford it. Play around with it and see if it works for you.

—

…and, that does it! In closing while I can now say I have played all three specs in both instance and raid situations in the past month or two, I still don’t know how much of an “expert” I can be considered especially on Marksmanship and Survival, so please, if you play one of those specs and you have more advice or corrections you would like to throw in, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do to edit your notes in.

And remember: this type of thing is often subjective. I encourage you to read the comments, read other blogs, and do your own research and testing on this subject. I just wanted to make a quick reference that should work fairly well in most situations. *nods*

guides, Uncategorized

So You Want To Be a WoW Blogger?

31 Comments

I get a ton of e-mails every week (which is why it sometimes takes me a few days or more to respond to them /sheepish) and one of the most frequent e-mails I get is “I’m thinking of starting a blog… any tips?”

So because it seems to be so common I figured I’d lay out my advice here in a post! =P

For starters the technical stuff. The two most commonly used free blogging platforms are Blogger and WordPress. Of those two, I actually much prefer Blogger. WordPress.com is rather limited in terms of what you can do in designing your blog– yes, more limiting than Blogger– and various types of Javascript such as WoWHead links will not work for you, whereas they will on Blogger. I see a lot of people switching from Blogger.com to WordPress.com, and I gotta admit, I don’t see the appeal, beyond the fact that you get an “about” page =P I tried it a while back when I was on Blogger and was thoroughly unimpressed. However, it’s all personal opinion really, so my advice would be to try out both platforms and see what you like. They are both good, solid blogging platforms and each has their pros and cons. I do also want to add, if you have any intention of switching to a self-hosted site later… then WordPress from the start is probably the better option. (Although I did the Blogger->self-hosted WordPress switch myself… it wasn’t that bad!)

You want the name of your blog to be catchy, have a ring to it, and easy to type out in the address box. I don’t recommend using acronyms or abbreviations in your address unless they are very easy to remember. aspectofthehare.blogspot.com is sorta long, but it is easier to remember than aothare.blogspot.com or something similar. You can click this link to improve your google ranking, this is essential when starting out. Also remember that your blog name is going to define what your blog is. Want in on a little secret? Aspect of the Hare was not originally a hunter blog. *gasp* I know, right? I mean, yes, I played hunters and only hunters, but originally it was “World of Warcraft thoughts in general” that I was going for, and my early blog posts even reflect this. However, it was a huntery name, so the blog wound up becoming, well, huntery. That means if you have a serious case of alt-itis you may not want to go with a class-specific name, and if you like to mess around with different specs you don’t want to name your blog “[InsertSpecHere]4Life”, unless, well, you really are. =P

When I was starting out two years ago, it was all the rage to name your WoW blog after various in-game abilities. There were all these blogs named The Hunter’s Mark, Blessing of Kings, Mark of The Wild, Trueshot Aura (which I’ve seen used more than once)… etc. I think pretty soon blogs snatched up all the available abilities and you started seeing other titles. =P I rather like the name of my own blog, even if the “hare” part is often confusing to people that don’t know me well. I combined the “name your blog after a WoW ability” meme with an animal that I like– I personalized WoW, so to speak. It worked out well.

You want your blog design to be uncluttered and have basics like a search box, a way to contact you, and of course, a link to your RSS feed! You don’t want to go overboard right away. I see a lot of new blogs that have a ton of “stuff” on their blog, but no real content yet. It’s okay to wait to add that “stuff” later, what most people want to see is your writing!

Visual identity is always a bonus. I’m not sure, but I often think that the cutesy picture of Tawyn and pets on my banner is a large part of what initially draws people to this blog. Even if you aren’t much of an artist, try getting a strong screenshot-based banner going, like at LessQQMorePewPew for example. Of course, you don’t need big flashy pictures or anything. Sometimes understatement works better. Try things out!

Content, oh, your content. I hear it all, from people saying “don’t go looking for a niche!” to others saying “you have to find a niche!” and everything in between. Lemme tell you about Aspect of the Hare. Nobody was ever supposed to read it. I was writing for me. Apparently people liked it. This is what I tell almost everybody who e-mails me wanting blog advice:

1.) Write what you love.
2.) Love what you write.
3.) Comment often.

Commenting on other peoples’ blogs is the easiest way to get traffic to yours, and if they see that you are passionate about what you are writing, and it is written well, they will stay.

Have you all seen the movie Mrs. Doubtfire with Robin Williams? They have this whole scene about a guy who has a TV show where he drones on and on about dinosaurs with little models and it’s really boring. Then Robin Williams shows up and starts having the dinosaurs sing songs and he makes it all funny and entertaining. That’s what you want to be. You want to be having fun with this. You want to be writing to make yourself happy. You want to be writing because you enjoy what you are writing about and because you’re excited to share your ideas with people. People will pick up on that enthusiasm.

Lastly, I sometimes get questions from people wanting to maximize their traffic. I have always seen traffic as something you don’t want to get buried too deep in, partially because I don’t think it matters as much as your content and secondly because the number of readers you have does not necessarily equal blog quality. However, I will say that in my experience, I have found that John Q. WoWBlogReader works a boring Mon-Fri job and reads you Mon-Fri mornings. So use that to your advantage. ;P

Aspect of the Hare is what it is today largely via word of mouth. Winding up on BRK’s sidebar was also a pretty big boost, but even without that, I was doing okay. I think it’s because I managed to corner a market of sheer enthusiasm for the hunter class, regardless of spec or playstyle. In short, I think I was in the right place at the right time. Regardless of whether you can hit that sweet spot or not, I find blogging to be a very rewarding (if time-consuming!) venue and anyone who wants to try it… please, jump into the pool! We don’t bite! =P

Questions or comments, leave ’em for me!

guides, movies

Heigan Dancing Lessons For Your Pet (Movie Included)

23 Comments

Couple things before I post the movie on this:

1.) Beast Masters have it easier. Improved Mend Pet for the win.
2.) I make no apologies for my cluttered UI…
3.) …or the super campy music. =D

This is my first try ever using the YouTube annotation feature so let me know if you have any problems with it. And now our feature presentation:

I would like to extend a special thanks to < Song of Chu > for letting me raid with them this week, and FRAPS a Heigan run with them (and extra credit for trying so hard to get me to defect from my guild and join theirs… ;P)

guides, hunter kindergarten, pets, screenshots, Uncategorized

Bon Appetit: Pet Snacks!

25 Comments

Buff food for us hunters is pretty self-explanitory. We like food that gives us Attack Power or Crit or Agility, or possibly even Hit or Haste, depending on our gear, spec, and circumstance. Don’t forget, though, that our pets can get buff food too:

lockenom

Currently, as far as I am aware, there are three foods in the game that will buff your pet. These are they:

Sporeling Snacks: An Outlands recipe available from Sporeggar rep, this food will give your pet 20 stamina and 20 spirit for 30 minutes. Requires level 55 to use.

Kibler’s Bits: An Outlands recipe from the Shattrath cooking daily, this food used to give your pet 20 strength and 20 spirit for 30 minutes– now it has been revamped and gives your pet 30 strength and 30 stamina for one hour. Requires level 55 to use.

Spiced Mammoth Treats: A Northrend recipe from the Dalaran cooking daily, this food has the exact same effect as Kibler’s Bits: gives your pet 30 strength and 30 stamina for one hour. Requires level 70 to use.

Now by looking at these three foods, it’s pretty clear that our poor old Sporeling Snacks have been outclassed. It doesn’t last nearly as long as the others and the stats are subpar. Still useful for leveling through Outlands if you happen to snag the recipe and mats, but even then, not really worth reaching for.

The other two, though, are your pets’ new best friends in raids or heroics!

Most cooks find that the Kibler’s Bits are much easier to make due to the easier-to-obtain ingredients. Me, I don’t have the recipe for either so I stalk the AH for both of them. They tend to be pricey when they pop up (though I can occasionally find Kibler’s Bits for quite a steal– I’ve bought a full stack of 20 for 3 gold) but the benefits they provide are pretty nice: a DPS boost and a survivability boost for your pet.

Plus, c’mon, he’s just so happy when you give him a treat!

So don’t forget to bring some with you alongside your hunter buff food: your pet will thank you. Oh, and also remember that the food doesn’t work like normal “pet food”… you don’t use the Feed Pet command to feed him. Rather, you “use” it like you would a food for yourself.

And no, I don’t know why an Outlands recipe and Northrend recipe with a usable-level discrepency are exactly the same either. I sort of suspect this may randomly change in a future patch, but hey, who knows?

In closing, I was a “caster tank” on Four Horsemen today. It was really fun, and I got a shiny new sword. *swings it around and hums contentedly as her pets dash for cover*

guides, hunter kindergarten, screenshots, Uncategorized

Aspect of the Viper and You

21 Comments

Welcome, friends, to Hunter Kindergarten! Today’s topic: Aspect of the Viper.

First a little history lesson for your newer hunter types: You used to learn Aspect of the Viper at level 64, and it was a passive mana-regen that didn’t reduce your damage the way it does now– well, other than the fact that if you were in AotV, you certainly weren’t getting the RAP bonus from Aspect of the Hawk. Despite this, there were a lot of fights in Burning Crusade that were pretty mana-intensive and you’d see a lot of endgame hunters running around in AotV 99% of the time. Me? I was always a purist so I only used it in emergencies; staying in Hawk and living on mana pots, Elixirs of Major Mageblood and Mana Oil (RIP, my beloved Mana Oil *sniff*). But the point remains that Blizzard realized that hunters were pretty mana-inefficient, spending all their time in AotV, and missing out on the yummy RAP bonus from Hawk.

Enter Wrath of the Lich King and we have an all new Aspect of the Viper, and what’s more, we can learn it at Level 20:

wow_aspectofthevipertrain

^ Pike’s fourth hunter to hit the big two-oh. Back in the day Aspect of the Cheetah was the big thing you learned at 20, now I’m much more excited about Viper. Cause hunter gear with Intellect on it sorta doesn’t exist in the old world. /cough

So what’s the new Aspect of the Viper do? Simple. It slices the damage you deal roughly in half but gives you mana back at a pretty solid rate. Some of this mana you gain passively, but a lot of it you gain back per shot… as in, every time you shoot something, with either Auto Shot or a special shot, you get mana back. The damage penalty does not apply to your pet, but it does apply to things like Serpent Sting that you apply while under the effects of AotV.

When to use it:

–When you’re out of mana/nearly out of mana. This one’s a given. Happens a lot when you’re out leveling or solo’ing (no downtime!) or sometimes mid-fights in instances/raids with little or no mana replenishment from other classes/specs. Not a lot you can do about it in that case!

–Between pulls. Say you’re in a five-man. You pop into Hawk/Dragonhawk, do a pull, and oh look, you’re almost out of mana! Hop into Viper. Right as the next pull starts, go back into Dragonhawk. Now sometimes if you’re in a really good group the tank is just gonna be chain-pulling stuff left and right and you’ll still find yourself having to either stop and drink, or Viper during the fight, but overall I’ve still found Viper-between-pulls to be a good strategy and a very good habit to get into.

–When you’re briefly out-of-the-fight. When Gothik ports to the other side of the gate, Viper until he comes back. When you get the Grobbulus debuff and you have to run to the wall and you’re much too far away to do any shooting, Viper until you can get back (alternative strategy on this fight for Beast Masters in particular: if you’re pretty full on mana when this happens, use Aspect of the Beast instead, to maximize pet damage while you’re away.) When you’ve killed all the adds and are sitting around waiting for Noth to port back, use Viper. …yeah so those were all Naxx examples, but you get the picture. >.> Ah, here’s a non-Naxx one: In Utgarde Keep when the final boss dies for the first time before whats-her-name comes down and pulls an arise-my-champion on him, yeah, use Viper.

When not to use it:

–When you’re full on mana. This is a given, you don’t want that damage reduction to be on you. I know it’s easy to forget about it (I forgot alllll the time the first couple of weeks of 3.0.2) but once you’ve been playing with it for a while you start to remember it. There are addons out there that you can search for that will help remind you too.

–When you really really need to kill something fast. I’ve been in fights (usually five/ten-mans where there are less people to pick up the slack) where the DPS is really important and the Viper damage reduction gets really noticeable. In that case, if you run out of mana, it might be a good idea to use a mana pot rather than Viper. Remember now that you can only use one mana pot per fight so time it wisely. (Have I mentioned lately that I love being an Alchemist?)

Viper Bonuses:

There are a few things that can improve the performance you squeeze out of Aspect of the Viper. There is a talent in the Beast Master tree, Aspect Mastery, that reduces the damage penalty by 10%. This talent is a given for Beast Masters and several Marksman hunters choose to take it too. There is also a glyph, Glyph of Aspect of the Viper, that increases the amount of mana gained on attack by 10%. Finally, the four-piece hunter tier 7 set bonus will increase your ranged attack speed by 20% while you are in Viper. I can imagine all of these little bonuses combined would be quite delicious (although I no longer use the Viper glyph, myself).

In conclusion, Aspect of the Viper has definitely become an important part of playing a hunter. It’s something you’ll be juggling frequently with Hawk/Dragonhawk and it’s good to practice using it and learn when best to use it. I also really like the imagery; I visualize a viper storing up energy before it strikes at its prey. Fun times.

As always, if I made some horrible mistake or you have further ideas/thoughts on Aspect of the Viper, lemme know! I don’t work today so I’ll be sitting around in LFG looking for Heroics or OS25 I’m sure (so did I mention that I can totally survive Sarth now? Wash can too! More on that later, perhaps!)